Will Write For Chocolate, Red-winged blackbirds?

My Will Write For Chocolate comic and column has been updated. This week's column topic: "Interviewing Tips For Freelance Writers."

And speaking of interviewing, I've posted an an interview with Buffalo poet Celia White on Poetry FAQ (a young poet's guide to poetry and poetry writing).

A short while back, I mentioned that I had hired a gardener to help me with spring clean-up this year, to make sure I don't kill our new garden. Sadly, she had to opt out at the last minute and there's no time to look for someone else. So...I'm going to be relying on advice from my friends on Livejournal and doing it myself (and with Jeff's help). Though I will be talking about gardeningstuff a bit in my Blatherings, I strongly suspect many of you won't be interested in my questions about how far to cut back our clematis vines, etc.



SO...I've decided to make a custom Livejournal list for those postings instead. If you're on LJ and don't mind seeing my garden posts, please do add yourself to the list. Thanks!

But meanwhile, here's a question for you birdwatching types. Recently there's been a medium-sized black bird that has been frequenting our birdfeeder. I haven't been able to get a photo because the bird has been too skittish. I would have assumed it was a common grackle except it has whitish border along its wing edge. It looks exactly like the picture of male at the top of this page. I thought I glimpsed a bit of red when it flew away once, but haven't yet been able to confirm this. I'm also a tad confused, since I thought red-winged blackbirds were mainly found in marshlands and other wet areas.

On the other hand, its distinctive cry is not the one on this page. Instead, it's a sort of piercing "EEEEEAR" that drops slightly in pitch near the end.

Any suggestions appreciated. :-)

And finally, Phil P.'s comment my Blathering yesterday made me laugh:

"With regard to your Italian language experience, it disturbs me that you have just enough words to say "How are you? Please to buy beautiful baby!" which ought to be good for a sequel to the part of your "Wo ist der Bahnhof?" song where you get arrested..."

:-)

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QOOP and driving through Paris at 180 km/hr

Above: This Little Nightmares drawing was inspired by the squirrels in my sister's neighbourhood who tend to like biting the heads off tulips, much to the frustration of garden owners. For some of my other gardening cartoons, see this Flickr set.

In yesterday's Blathering, I said that Flickr's partner, QOOP, didn't do prints. Hugh Folkerth, QOOP's Director of Consumer Relations, sent me an e-mail today (I have no idea how he found out about yesterday's Blathering, but I'm glad he wrote...especially since he said nice things about my drawings :-)) to tell me that QOOP does indeed now offer prints. "In fact, we have a double prints offer for a limited time on 4 x 6 and 4D sizes, but we print poster-sizes too, which you might enjoy."

I'm definitely going to check out the service by ordering something, but I'm still on the lookout for a reliable online service that will sell prints for me, where I won't have to do the packaging and mailing and administration myself. Thanks to those of you who have sent me tips. I'll be writing another Blathering in the future with an update on QOOP as well as my search for an online print sales service.

Thanks also for all the great Europe advice! To clarify: Jeff and I do plan to return to Paris someday for a longer stay. The main purpose of this trip is to visit with Jeff's mom in Italy; the short Paris trip at the beginning is a special treat for ourselves since I've never been to the city. Anyway, here are some of the useful links that people have posted:

C'etait un rendez-vous: a great short film about driving through Paris at 180 km/hr. From antonia_tiger, who says "It's not that long, and manages to take in some of the standard tourist locations on the way. You don't get much time to actually see them..."

National Museum of The Middle Ages (from Hitch)

Cacao et Chocolat: Yay, the chocolate shop I was looking for! From Mark Bernstein: "I especially like the chocolates in the Imperiale line."

This afternoon I decided to run on a treadmill at the gym instead of outdoors because the weather was colder than I expected, and I discovered an Italian soap opera on the little tv attached to the treadmill. Jeff and I gave up cable tv over a year ago, so I do sometimes surf channels while I run to see what I've been missing. Not much, it seems, at least not during the day...I usually end up watching part of a Star Trek rerun, preferably Kirk-Classic (which we have at home on DVD, but I can't resist Captain Kirk, y'know)...

Anyway, I was curious to see whether I'd be able to understand ANYTHING in Italian so I put on the headphones and listened. And y'know, I did manage to pick out the occasional word or phrase. Like when the somewhat conniving mother called her son on the phone and asked how he was (I even recognized the informal "How are you") and he said he was doing badly. Um, what else. Anytime someone said "please" or "baby" (which was frequently...there seemed to be a lot of angst about people having babies or not able to have babies) or "beautiful." I was especially proud when I recognized the verb "to buy."

Don't know how far this will get me in Italy, but it's a start, eh?

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Selling prints online, seeking Europe advice

Above: newest addition to my Little Nightmares set. Yes, it's a monster squirrel!

After advice from Beckett, I've decided not to go with the convention art show idea...there's not enough money in it, plus I don't tend to attend general sf/fantasy conventions anymore, just filk events.

Instead, I'm investigating online services that will sell prints of my digital artwork. Why go with a service rather than do it myself? Because I don't want the administration hassle (packaging, mailing, customs fees etc.); I'd rather spend the time writing and drawing.

Anyway, I was considering DeviantArt, but their copyright policy makes me a tad nervous. From the Wikipedia entry on DeviantArt: "Historically there has been sporadic unease regarding deviantART's potential usage of uploaded art. Posting requires assent to dA's Submission Agreement, which grants deviantART the legal permissions to re-use and even modify any artwork posted on deviantART (see in particular Section 3. License), as well as the right to sublicense any of that artwork to a third party at dA's sole discretion." In order to sell a print through the service, you need to upload it to the regular database.

However, some respected artists use the service, and it would hurt deviantART's reputation quite badly if they abused the copyright clause.

There's my Cafepress store, of course, but it's not really a venue for selling prints. Flickr sells prints, but only to U.S. citizens. They recommend QOOP for non-U.S types, but the service only seems to offer books and posters, not prints.

There seem to be a zillion services online that enable photographers/artists to sell prints; I have no idea how to choose. Hm. Maybe this would make a good magazine article. :-)

Anyway, if any of you have experience or advice, I'd appreciate it.

Seeking Europe travel advice!

Meanwhile, I'm getting more and more excited about our Europe trip. We'll be visiting places I've never been, including Paris, Florence, Tuscany area in Italy, Rome. Jeff and I have been getting a lot of useful advice from friends and family who have already travelled in those places.

As I've mentioned in a previous Blathering, Jeff and I tend not to be as interested in the standard tourist attractions as some others may be (e.g. we will probably opt NOT to go up the Eiffel Tower, though I do plan to look at it :-)) and we both hate long line-ups...the pain of the latter weighs heavily against the lure of the former. We only have two full days in Paris, and would rather spent the hour or two people-watching at a sidewalk cafe on the Champs Elysées than standing in a queue. We plan to spend one of the days walking along the Seine, checking out art galleries, parks and other interesting sights along the way. We'll be spending the bulk of our visit in the Tuscany area of Italy, courtesy the generosity of my mom-in-law (thanks, Ginny!).

Anyway, I welcome suggestions from any of you with travel experience in the above-mentioned places. I'm especially interested in interesting culinary experiences, preferably inexpensive and authentic to a region. One of you mentioned a particularly good chocolate shop in Paris a while ago; sadly, I've lost the note I made, and can't recall who it was or the name of the shop. I promise to paste the info into my Notetaker file right away this time!

Miscellaneous links and news:

An obituary about Dan Gibson appeared in today's Toronto Star. As I mentioned in a Blathering several weeks back, Dan Gibson passed away on March 18th.

To "tigertoy", "chriso" and "avt-tor": your LJ icons are next.

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Writing, monster bunnies, and mortality songs

Above: Our quince tree is just starting to show leaf and flower buds. I took this yesterday in the early evening when the rain was falling in a fine mist.

Now that I'm nearly finished my current YA novel (Ruth and Jeff are both reading my manuscript right now), I'm overwhelmed with ideas for my next fiction projects. It seems like so long since I've had new ones that it's going to be an interesting challenge deciding what to do next. I'm currently leaning toward an early chapter reader series; writing the first one, including a pitch for the rest of the series in the package.

I'm very, very happy that after several years, my tendinitis seems to have improved enough that I can work on my fiction without being conscious of pain/keystroke effort every few minutes...the latter made it nearly impossible to work on a work of fiction, I found, which is why I focussed nearly exclusively on nonfiction, temporarily abandoning my novel.

BUT I also have a bunch of ideas for nonfiction books for young people, so I'm gradually working on those proposals as well.

So many books I want to write, so little time.



Above: This is the first of my Corel Painter 9.5 drawings that I've liked enough to print out and frame. It'll make a cheery addition to my office wall, don't you think?

;-)

I'm toying with the idea of doing a series of Monster Bunny type of prints, a few to donate to Interfilk auctions, and perhaps some limited edition prints for art shows at sf/fantasy conventions. I'll need to work on more designs and do a lot more research before I attempt this, however. For one thing, I need to find out more about digital prints and how expensive archival quality prints would be. Are the prints that are sold at these sf/fantasy art shows of archival or non-archival quality, for example? According to this Web site, the lifespan of non-archival prints is about 10 years without fading and colour shifting; I assume this means a lower price. I'd appreciate advice from anyone out there with experience in this area.

My newest Monster Bunny drawing:



In one of my FilKONtario reports, I mentioned that Robert C. sang a song at FilKONtario called "The Mortality Song" which I found pretty amusing. Robert has posted the lyrics in his Livejournal, if you're interested. His intro:

"I started on this song soon after GAFilk. It was at GAFilk that someone who shall be nameless (but whose initials are Brenda Sutton (g)) outbid me on the Debbie Ohi Surprise Pack, which included (among other neat things) a guest appearance in Debbie's current strip 'My Life In a Nutshell'. This event left me quite dejected and depressed, and it really made me question my own purpose and the meaning of my life. I ended up writing the following ballad in an effort to come to grips with my own questions and doubts. It's really quite ose, but it did me good to get the feelings out."

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Monster bunny art recipe

Do check out Kate Parkinson's illustration blog, which I just discovered. Samples include her oil paintings as well as drawings done by hand and computer images. I love Kate's illustration style.

Today's Blatherpics are more Corel Painter 9.5 drawings, this time with a darker tone. I know that illustrators are encouraged to eventually settle into a particular style, one that art directors will identify with them.

I still feel I'm too much of a newbie to choose a style yet, which is why I've been experimenting with a wide variety in Corel Painter. I have noticed, though, that so far the drawing styles that tend to feel most natural to me is a cheerful cartoon-illustration style but also a style with a darker tone and with looser lines, like my Ancient, Snow Clones, and Rolling Head drawings. And the drawings on today's page, of course, which were SO fun to do.

I've joined the Art Recipes Flickr Group, in which members post finished pieces of art along with the "recipes" (step-by-step process) that go with them. Some of the process recipes are quite detailed and enlightening, like the one for this impressive Illustrator drawing of an Asian girl.

Anyway, here's a sample of one my process recipes, which you can find in this Flickr set. You can click on any image to see a larger version. I'm using the finished drawing as one of my LJ user icons.

	I filled the canvas with a dark brown colour as a base. My usual method is usually just to leave the canvas colour as white, because I like how bright the image looks. This time I wanted to try a different base colour.
	Next, I used the Loaded Wet Sponge to get some interesting coloured textures on the canvas.
	Using the Croquil brush, I sketched the monster bunny shape. The body was done quickly. I added the claws because I wanted to add a bit of menace.
	Next, I used Chalk to fill in the drawing, purposely left some fuzzy edges for visual interest and an extra nightmarish quality. Then I used the Lasso Tool to outline the shape of the mouth, filled that with a different colour and texture. Used the Lasso Tool again to outline the two sets of teeth, filled it with white. Used the Leaky Brush and Airbrush to create the stains.
	Used Croquil to add the red eyes and the pupil. The eyes looked too bright to me, so I softened the look a bit with some Charcoal.

I used the textured background technique in my drawing for this week's Illustration Friday. Topic: "Robots."



What does it say about me, I wonder, that I enjoy both the fun cartoony style above AND the darker style below?

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